E3 2018: Devolver Again the Class Clown of Press Conferences

Jeremy Ray
Games PC Gaming
Games PC Gaming

Devolver’s press conference can be a bit of a dark horse. In times gone by, there was very little announced and the whole thing was very silly — which for Devolver, is right on brand.

This year was no different. We sadly didn’t get to see the new Serious Sam 4, but Devolver revealed it’s working with From Software to bring out a remake of Metal Wolf Chaos.

It was super silly. This year, in addition to the random humour we’re used to, the company seemed especially bent on digs at larger publishers and trends like loot boxes. What better way to introduce your second speaker than by having her snap the neck of the first?

See all of the news and announcements below.

Serious Sam 4: Planet Badass

Very little was revealed about this title before E3 2018, other than Serious Sam 4 would have many of the classic enemies we can expect. But what about specifics like co-op?

Unfortunately we still don’t know much — there was nothing of Serious Sam 4 to be seen, which we find very surprising. Oh well. We’ll be playing the game in a couple of days, so watch this space.

Metal Wolf Chaos XD

There were hints of Devolver working on this franchise when they posted a (seemingly) tongue-in-cheek offer to help From Software bring it into the modern era.

But we knew for sure this was coming after Devolver tweeted this:

Metal Wolf Chaos XD is a remake of the 2004 Xbox title in which you, the President of the United States, fend off a coup from your own Vice President. You’ll do so from the inside of a giant mech and show the world that you could have taken presidential power anyway, but you chose to be democratically elected.

Devolver is the perfect publisher for this one. It’s highly silly. Though the above trailer makes us wonder if this is more of a remaster than the proper remake we thought.

It’s hard to be mad when it’s got the best tagline of any game at E3 though: Mech America Great Again.

SCUM

If you don’t know SCUM, this is a survival game aiming for hyperrealism to the point of sweat weighing you down and chafing. Starting in an open world supermax prison, you’ll battle other inmates and remnants of the prison regime.

The big announcement here is that SCUM will be in Early Access in August 2018.

There’ve been extensive videos with the developers talking about all the intricacies of this game, so Devolver didn’t bother explaining much about it. Though it may have been nice to detail it for those who aren’t fully up to date on Devolver’s upcoming offerings.

My Friend Pedro

This game looks… well… bananas.

You’ll be able to twirl through this 2D platformer with twin Uzis, taking out baddies on either side with acrobatic flair.

The above trailer is quite similar to one we’ve already seen, but we now know it’ll be coming to Switch and PC in early 2019.

All the Fake Stuff

It wouldn’t be a fair shake for Devolver if we didn’t talk about all its jokes. In fact, we’re pretty sure there were more jokes than games. Devolver executive Nina Struthers, played by Mahria Zook, sold the jokes incredibly well.

Combining the loot box and cryptocurrency trends, LootBoxCoin was announced, which is absolutely not a thing. But it’s probably given someone, somewhere, some ideas.

It also announced a new console designed specifically to shake money out of our pockets by tapping into our nostalgia. This actually is a thing — it’s just not from Devolver. *ahem*

Jeremy Ray
Decade-long games critic and esports aficionado. Started in competitive Counter-Strike, then moved into broadcast, online, print and interpretative pantomime. You merely adopted the lag. I was born in it.